Just a day earlier, within the giant interior of Central Tower – with walls that stretch as far as the eye can see – a parade of various minions comes carrying goods, decorations, toppings, ingredients, and much more. Holiday Minion, his hands drawn behind his back and looking professionally jolly as usual, takes a moment to appreciate the unique position of fortune he's in.
"Doing it all yourself this year?" Delivery Minion says from behind, sliding in on his little Vespa scooter.
Holiday Minion gives a quick nod, causing a pleasant jingle from his adorned antler antennae. "That's right. All on me this time around."
"Big responsibility," Delivery Minion reminds.
"Ha!" Holiday Minion nods again, producing yet another wonderful jingle. "It's been a lot of work – weeks, in fact – but it's all going to be worth it for him."
Delivery Minion dismounts his scooter and steps up on the stage to see what Holiday Minion's looking at. Crowds and crowds of minions in well-organized lines place down presents, decorations, and large slices of cake, as well as materials to construct scaffolding around said cake.
"Ah, so this is it," Delivery Minion says. "I thought it was just a rumor."
"Not this time," Holiday Minion says. "Chaos is going to get the biggest cake in the universes. It'll make that upstart overlord's cake look like a total joke."
Delivery Minion smirks. "You think we can do that?"
"What do you mean?" Holiday Minion asks.
"We're really gonna make Overlord Delirium's birthday cake look like a joke?"
"Yup," Holiday Minion affirms.
"The one that was seventeen stories tall?"
Holiday Minion nods before chuckling out a response. "Yeah. Even if it was a one hundred and seventy story cake... just you wait," he continues, turning towards the scaffolding, already under quick construction with Fortification Minion and Engineering Minion leading the charge. "Just wait till those pretenders see this one on the Ultranet."
Delivery Minion places his hand on his waist, a bemused look on his face as he watches the scaffolding rising fast and ever-higher in front of them. "It's so strange, how we have to compete all over the universe with all these other overlords. And now we're doing it not only in wars – beating them to relics and busting up their stupid castles – but also on social media now. I think it's kind of silly, personally," he says, winning a jingling nod from Holiday Minion.
"Now, you just watch yourself, too," Holiday Minion says. "The perception of people is half the battle. Can High Overlord Chaos really do all the things that people say he can if he doesn't also have the largest cake in The Verses?"
Delivery Minion shrugs and rolls his glowing white eyes. "I… guess so."
"So, what are you here for?" Holiday Minion asks, glancing back over to him.
Delivery Minion's slim antennae flip up with professional alert. "Oh, right!" he says, reaching into his red messenger bag and pulling out a single manila envelope. "Pocket delivery."
Holiday Minion's eyes widen a bit, as if bothered. "Ah, so this is how it's going to work," he notes.
Delivery Minion shoos with his hand, as if to dismiss his concern. "Don't worry about it. That's pretty normal for his birthday. We get tens of thousands of letters, packages, traps, explosives, poisons... you name it, really. Nothing too dangerous."
"…Too dangerous?" Holiday Minion asks for clarification.
Delivery Minion smiles. "Last year he was sent a paper bomb so hot it had the same blast power as a nuke."
Holiday Minion blinks in shock. "But… but the cake!" he whines.
"Oh, now you're just... look, don't get ahead of yourself, man. It's all good! If it's something that'll ruin the party, he'll just send it right back to the person who sent it to him."
Holiday Minion's expression neutralizes to a blank stare out in space for a moment as he tries to weigh how that would look. But then he leans back with realization. "Right, the 'teleporting anything' type thing."
Delivery Minion nods. "Yep. The wizard who sent it to him was in for a nasty surprise. So don't worry about it, and Chaos can spot these things just by looking at them. I guess those eyes are a little bit better than ours."
Holiday Minion steps about with a nervous jingle. "B-but-"
"Chill out, man. You've been here longer than I have: I thought you knew this."
It bothers Holiday Minion every now and again, realizing just how little he knows about the High Overlord, but having some young blood like Delivery Minion lecture him on his master's capabilities doesn't sit quite right with him. "Yes, I suppose you have a point there. He doesn't even need to squint," he says.
"Nope," Delivery Minion says proudly. "He just sort of knows." He reports, his gaze straying over to the side. "And what's this one?" he says, nodding over to another scaffolding.
Holiday Minion glances over and catches the gaze of Paper Crafts Minion, who immediately looks over to him and waves. He waves back. "That," Holiday Minion answers, "is going to be the one hundred and seventy-story paper-mâché Chaos statue."
Delivery Minion pauses a moment. "Wait, one hundred and seventy?"
"That's right," Holiday Minion answers. "So, like, take whatever Overlord Delirium's little porkies did, and just, you know, multiply that by ten… but the cake's going to be even taller."
Delivery Minion glances over and notices just how much higher the scaffolding is going. In fact, it's going almost as far as the ceiling of the main chamber – up to the apex of the Center Tower's Central Tower. "Well, that'll certainly do the trick," he says.
Holiday Minion grins. "Yep, his antennae's going to be taller than her entire cake," he says, winning a chuckle from Delivery Minion. "Why do other overlords even try?" Holiday Minion adds with a question that's mostly to himself more so than the fellow next to him.
Delivery Minion shrugs. "I don't really know. I'm just glad to be on the winning team."
Holiday Minion nods again. "I hear that… you can understand why I'm nervous, though, can't you?"
Delivery Minion smiles back. "It's a fair enough concern for how much you got riding on this, but you also can understand why you shouldn't be worrying when you have a boss that can just 'disappear' anything he wants."
Holiday Minion scoffs at the idea, but again, Delivery Minion has a great point.
"So," the postminion continues with a jostle of the bag, "where do you want all this?"
Holiday Minion looks at the manila envelope like a drawn knife. "Couldn't you just... I don't know... put it in one of the other chambers? Maybe Central's basement? I mean, if they are private letters, after all," he says, winning a squint from Delivery Minion.
"What do you mean? We always do the letter opening during the cake."
"Well, yes," Holiday Minion responds defensively, "but I wanted this present opening to be more of a personal, internal-to-Towerne kind of occasion. Didn't want any of those outsiders bothering us with their unnecessary silliness this time."
Delivery Minion's glance is a bit suspicious as he eyes over the camera equipment being set up nearby. "22 trillion sins of tribute payments is silliness to you?" he asks before brandishing the manila envelope as if it really were a knife. "This contains the expressions of loyalty from more than 58,000 separate civilizations. You think it's unnatural to open it in front of his Minionry? Where else would you do that?"
Holiday Minion begins to speak, but Delivery Minion continues on, leaning in slightly. "And I'm sure you know how excited he was about receiving that Lake Villa in the traditional Subaran style from the Amarians."
"Well, I'm sure it's all a setup for a trap," Holiday Minion says, glancing away.
Delivery Minion rolls his eyes before swinging back. "It's always a trap, dude. That's the funny part. The thrill of it. He shows up and just beats up the ambush. It's about making a statement. Are you really telling me that you want to have footage of this giant cake without a gigantic amount of letters with it? How vain would that be?"
Holiday Minion smirks awkwardly. "N-now I don't think 'vain' is the right word here."
"Whatever. We have to have the letters, okay? Just... it's a big part of it, and you know that, and even though you're technically in charge this time, doesn't mean you actually get to mess up a longstanding tradition to protect the one person, in all of creation and then-some, that needs protection the least."
Holiday Minion grips his little jingly crook staff and exhales in defeat. "Well… yes, but I'm just so worried that something's going to go wrong..."
Delivery Minion gives his friend a pat on the back. "It's going to be fine. Don't worry. You're the best at this and everyone's here to back you up. Nothing's going to go wrong."
Holiday Minion looks over, pauses, and then returns the pat on the back. "Alright. You know what you're talking about," he sighs before continuing. "As usual… You can just put them over there," Holiday Minion says, pointing out a nice space nearby the centerpieces.
The scaffolding for the statue, the cake, and the quickly growing mountain of presents from the Minionry certainly seem suited to hold a "High Overlordly" amount of mail.
Delivery Minion fires off a jaunty salute before turning away. "Right-o, commander," he says before hopping back on his little scooter, revving it up and heading off.